


All That Heaven Will Allow

by BarefootGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Ficlet, M/M, end-of-series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2611130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootGirl/pseuds/BarefootGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Biromantic heterosexual Dean Winchester has to make the call...</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Heaven Will Allow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [relucant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/relucant/gifts).



“I’m not…I can’t.”

There’s a long silence, and he hunched his shoulders against what comes next, if it’s Cas leaving again, the silent flutter of wings and the empty space left behind, or a door, human-style, closing behind him. Inevitable, really. Castiel might have been willing to stay for the cause, for the mission, but Cas…Cas had figured out humanity pretty well, hadn’t he? The good and the bad. The physicality of it, he’d said. And he was - what had he said? “Indifferent to gender,” right.

But Dean wasn’t. He couldn’t be. His hands itched for soft curves, not… It didn’t bother him, he’d never gotten freaked out by two guys together, might even had admired in passing a good-looking guy because hot was hot; it just wasn’t his thing, sex-wise. If Cas had taken a female vessel… but he hadn’t. And he’d have been someone different if he had, maybe? Someone not-Cas?

Too many thoughts, crowding, trying to distract him, waiting for the moment he was alone, bracing for the moment he was alone.

Instead, a hand on his shoulder, strong and warm, fingers pressing into the flesh not quite hard enough to bruise, but unmistakably there.

“The pleasures of flesh are…mutable.” His voice wasn’t the deep fierce growl, but softer. Closer to Jimmy’s voice, once upon a time, the brief time they’d known his vessel in person. “Pleasant, but fleeting, and I have discovered they are easily replicated when alone.”

“S’not the same,” he said, choking off a laugh. Only Cas would use a word like mutable when talking about sex. Did they teach ‘em English out of an old Bible, or was that hardwired into them at Creation?

“No,” Castiel agreed. “But neither would another partner be you. If I may not have that which I desire, substitutions are….” He sighed. “I am too aware they are substitutions. I would prefer my own hand to using someone else in that manner.”

And there’s more guilt, and guilt for feeling a little gleeful at the admission. “I can’t…”

“I know.” There it was. But there wasn’t judgment in those two words, or annoyance. A little regret, sure, but…

Dean turned, finally, and lifted his gaze to Castiel’s face.

Regret, but also patience. And the same fondness that had been there for years now, the deep affection that some days had been the only thing Dean could hold onto, the sure anchor during the storm. The profound bond that he’d felt in his own chest, his own gut, since… since rising out of the grave, he could admit now, tracing the length of that bond back to its first sensation. Affection, respect, friendship…they had all come later. But that had been the seed.

He didn’t know what the hell was between them. Castiel wasn’t his brother. Friend, yes, but… more. Enough that the thought of being without him, of not having him here, by his side, was a hollow pain echoing the torments of hell.

How did you fall in love with someone you didn’t want to have sex with? It had always been the other way around for him, before. See, want, and then maybe eventually fall in love.

Cassie, his mind thought. Lisa.

Castiel.

His hand lifted, covering the one still gripping his shoulder. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted. He could do that, with Cas: admit ignorance, admit fear. Admit helplessness.

“You don’t have to,” Castiel said. “We’ll…make it up as we go.”

“And if it’s not enough? If…” If their sexual urges went in different directions, he meant. If one of them met someone else, someone who jerked the right strings, lured them away…

Those blue eyes didn’t waver. “I’d rather have you. Other partners or not.”

Dean swallowed, aware, even if the angel wasn’t, what they were saying. So many ways this could go wrong, and jealousy was number one on the list. But…

Cas. Cas was here, wasn’t leaving. Was offering to stay. 

“Okay. Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I love the idea of a full-on Destiel happy ending, I'm also seeing one where Dean holds to his established heterosexual patterns...without anyone being so stupid as to deny the fact that those two idiots are clearly in love. :-) And somewhere between the first cup of coffee and the second (which seems to be a magical place for ficlets), this happened.
> 
> The title is from the Bruce Springsteen song (please, have you MET me?)
> 
>  
> 
> ...So c'mon mister trouble  
> We'll make it through you somehow  
> We'll fill this house with all the love  
> All that heaven will allow


End file.
